No book is an island, entire of itself. This one had its genesis in the ferment of a movement and in the work of thousands whose names I will never know. But there are also those whose names are etched between the lines of this book, without whom there would be no book.
My greatest debt and my deepest gratitude is due to my remarkable mother, Carol Gould, and my late, great father, Marx Wartofsky, for bringing me into the world, for teaching me to wrestle with its hardest questions, and for inspiring me to fight, and to write, for a better one. It is they who made this book possible. It is to them that this book is dedicated.
Of the many friends and colleagues who helped me get here, I would like especially to thank Daniel Aldana Cohen, with whom I first conceived this project; Aaron Carretti, whose brilliant artwork brought the text to life; and Sarah Isadora Dowd, whose steadfast support and generosity of spirit helped sustain me during the difficult period of the book’s completion.
I want to express my gratitude to the faculty of the Department of Sociology at New York University, especially Steven Lukes and Vivek Chibber for their critical engagement and invaluable encouragement, along with Jeff Goodwin, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Neil Brenner, Lynne Haney, and Deirdre Royster, for making space in their classes for the development of this project.
This book also benefited greatly from the critical insights of social movement scholars in other places: Jane Mansbridge of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Ruth Milkman of the Department of Sociology, City University of New York; Jeffrey Juris of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University; Roberto Mangabeira Unger of Harvard Law School; and Craig Calhoun, director of the London School of Economics.
For their helpful commentary and supportive community, I want to thank my fellow students in the Department of Sociology, my co-workers in the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, and my co-investigators in the OWS Research Lab, the Superstorm Research Lab, and the Economic and Political Sociology, Global Cities, and Qualitative Methods workshops.
In particular, I wish to acknowledge the contributions of my colleagues Eman Abdelhadi, Ifeoma Ajunwa, A.J. Bauer, Naima Brown, Matt Canfield, Mónica Caudillo, John Clegg, Ned Crowley, Dan DiMaggio, Sara Duvisac, Hassan El Menyawi, Jessica Feldman, John Halushka, Max Holleran, Max Liboiron, Adam Murphree, Michelle O’Brien, Amaka Okechukwu, Caitlin Petre, Eyal Press, Natasha Raheja, René Rojas, Shelly Ronen, Ihsan Ercan Sadi, Stuart Schrader, Wilson Sherwin, Anna Skarpelis, Jonathan Smucker, Christy Thornton, Adaner Usmani, Erik Van Deventer, Nantina Vgontzas, Francisco Vieyra, David Wachsmuth, Abigail Weitzman, Robert Wihr Taylor, and Yasemin Yilmaz.
I am profoundly grateful to my friends, in New York City and around the world, for their mutual aid and moral support throughout this process: Adam Clark Estes, Alyssa Aguilera, Pupa Bajah, Newell Blair-Mann, Melissa Bourkas, Win Chane, André Cohen, Jim Cohen, Kelcie Beene Cooper, Sarah David Heydemann, Anna del Valle, Rebecca Fong, Libertad Gills, Jonathan Hayes Bradley, Noah Hertz-Bunzl, Sam Holleran, Alex Holmstrom-Smith, Sariyah Idan, Farin Kautz, James Kautz, Glenn Kissack, Kelly Lee, Penny Lewis, Ariel Luckey, Jessie Joyce Meredith, Rebecca Nathanson, Meg Neal, Susan Phillips, Michael Philson, Alison Ramer, Taylor Reynolds, Erez Sas, Jennifer Saura, Erin Schell, Sarah Seltzer, Kavita Shah, Alice Speri, Bhaskar Sunkara, Joel Wilde II, and Ari Zeiguer.
I would also like to recognize the occupiers who contributed their voices to this volume: Aine and Amanda, Julia Alford Fowler, Senia Barragan, Max Berger, Mark Bray, Rob Call, Sundrop Carter, Ale de Carvalho, Isham Christie, Robbie Clark, Mary Clinton, Sam Corbin, Khadijah Costley White, Michelle Crentsil, Kirby Desmarais, Jackie DiSalvo, Bill Dobbs, Lisa Fithian, Tim Franzen, Zoltán Glück, Laura Gottesdiener, Priscilla Grim, Austin Guest, Arun Gupta, Marni Halasa, Kelly Hayes, Marisa Holmes, Drew Hornbein, Amin Husain, Diego Ibanez, Toussaint Losier, Manissa McCleave Maharawal, Cecily McMillan, Travis Mushett, Madeline Nelson, Ronny Nuñez, Sandra Nurse, David Orlikoff, Michael Premo, Malik Rhasaan, Messiah Rhodes, Boots Riley, Roy San Filippo, Niral Shah, Tammy Shapiro, Doug Singsen, Heather Squire, Nelini Stamp, Larry Swetman, Conor Tomás Reed, Justine Tunney, Natalie Wahlberg, Brigitte Walker, Justin Wedes, and Yvonne Yen Liu.
I further want to thank those who spoke to me from the international movement of the squares, including Thanos Andritsos, Carlos Barragan, Alejandra Borcel, Lucia Rey Castillo, Miguel Arana Catania, Elias Chronopoulos, Susana Draper, Amador Fernandez-Savater, Georgos Kalampokas, Eleni Katsarea, Clive Menzies, Luis Moreno-Caballud, Roberto Noqueres, Nikky Schiller, Despoina Paraskeva, Alexandros Pouliatsis, Vicente Rubio, Georgia Sagri, Begonia Santa Cecilia, Inka Stafrace, and Joshua Virasami, along with Carolina, Jano, Mariangela, Ternura, and anonymous members of the Assembly for the Circulation of Struggles.
Finally, acknowledgment is due to my editor, James Cook of Oxford University Press, for working with me to bring The Occupiers from conception to completion; to my anonymous reviewers for their essential comments and criticisms; to Peter Worger of the Press and Sunoj Sankaran of NewGen Knowledge Works; and to all the unnamed workers who produced the book you now hold in your hands.